Psychedelics and Christianity: Breaking Superstition with Hunt Priest

I was at a dinner party recently and someone raised an interesting question. They said, "What's the church's stance on psilocybin and specifically micro doing psilocybin for anxiety?" Psilocybin being the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. And it was a really fun conversation to hear what everybody thought about it. And one person actually brought up that he said there was a pastor who did mushrooms and then made a sermon about it, but then kind of got his wrist slapped by the church because he's promoting an illicit substance, which we would never do here on the Austin and Matt podcast. Um, but I just I really enjoyed the conversation. So afterwards, I went and I looked him up. Turns out his name is Hunt Priest. Uh, his last name is Priest and he is a former priest of the Episcopal Church. And uh John's Hopkins has been studying psilocybin as a therapy for the last 25 years. And back in 2016, they did an entire cohort of religious leaders. So folks that were leaders of churches, synagogues, mosques, I think it was about 25 people. And the results were incredible. Um half of them said that it was the number one most spiritual experience of their entire life. And I think 95% of them said it was in the top five most spiritual experiences of their entire life. And it was it was anonymous. Um but Hunt was the first one that kind of came out of it and said, "I got to talk more about this." Um so he did and he started a nonprofit called Legar, which is all about blending Christianity and psychedelics. And so we got to sit down with him in his house in Savannah in his backyard. And I think it's really a good time to engage in this topic because big pharma is already synthesizing it and it's going to be a prescription drug. Um it's already showing that it works better than SSRIs for depression and anxiety. Um and so you could say that it just has a lot of good fruit and I still think there's a lot of religious superstition around psilocybin and these mushrooms specifically. And so I just wanted to hear what his thoughts were on it by having been in the church as a leader in the church and then also now having done psychedelics and and and he says they blend. So I wanted to learn more. It was really a fun conversation. He is such a nice guy and I really think this is one of our best ones yet. Um thank you so much for watching. Please subscribe if you haven't yet. It still keeps helping us and gets this message out to other people. And as long as we can keep having interesting conversations with interesting people, we're going to keep going. All right. On to the show. Uh, can we call you Reverend? No. No. No. Oh, okay. All right. That's Yeah, that's Yeah, I'm no longer a priest in the Episcopal Church. Okay, got it. Well, Hunt, that honorific wouldn't apply. Hunt priest, thanks for being on the Austin Matt podcast. Thank you. This is awesome. It is. We're in Hunt's backyard right now for those who are just only listening in Savannah, Georgia. Yeah. And it is awesome. A beautiful January day. That's right. Mid50s, 60s, I don't know. It's nice out here. Snowtorm barreling across the rest of the country. Tomorrow it'll be covered in snow, but today it feels great. Yeah. Uh let us know what you do. Tell tell us about your work. What are you involved in right now? I've started and I founded and I'm the director of a nonprofit uh at the intersection of Christianity, mental health, spirituality, and psychedelics. Okay. And I've that's started that five years ago. I was a priest in the Episcopal church for 20 years and have been part of a research study at Johns Hopkins in 2016 almost 10 years ago now uh in their research with psilocybin and mental health. Yes. So John's Hopkins has been researching psilocybin for 20 25 years and as far as I understand it they had one cohort amidst the 25 years of a lot of research where they brought in religious leaders of different religions to all kind of give everybody a dose and that's what you were a part of. Yeah. And what they were discover Yeah. So they gave us the mental health pro that they would give somebody with depression or anxiety or addiction. They gave us the protocol, used the protocol, but we'd all passed mental health screening. So it was not a mental health study. They wanted to see how religious people trained in their own religious traditions, practitioners would respond to the protocol. That was the uh because people that were having the best results were having profound religious andor spiritual experiences. It was mixed faith. It was a mixed faith. Yeah. mostly Christian, four rabbis, one Muslim woman educator, and I think two Buddhists. Did you guys meet beforehand? All the cohorts? We couldn't. Oh, we were all individual sessions because of HIPPA. We couldn't Oh, they couldn't introduce us. Once I started Legar, we started finding each other. I was the first one of the rabbis started a similar nonprofit called Chef of Flow. Then I started Legar. And once we put our heads up, people started finding us in the study. Did you have an opinion on psychedelics before going into that? Neutral. I I'd been around it. I I had smoked pot before. I certainly had consumed alcohol and um I'd been around mushrooms and LSD before, but it just didn't really interest me. I didn't have a strong judgment against it. I just thought, well, I I don't need that because you were a priest at this time in there. Right. And did do you know if the church had given any direction around psychedelics or were they mute on the topic? The episal church didn't have any sort of stated stated uh stance on that. I mean you could the legality part would be that would be something that would be of concern I guess but sure but but the uh as far as there's no formal statement in the Episcopal church some denominations do the Methodists do although that's not really followed I don't think but there's no official statement in the Episcopal church what's the Methodist do you know their official well I mean officially Methodists aren't allowed to drink I mean that so and I don't know many Methodists that don't so and there there's a there's But it's almost like passing rules. Exactly. Doesn't work. But uh the temperance movement came out of the Methodist movement. So that's part but that's kind of the history of that. But um but uh the Methodist church does have a stated a statement about hallucinogenic drugs that aren't used. I believe this is right. Not used for uh mental health or for medical non-medical use of psychedelics or I can't remember exactly. It's in their book of discipline. Oh, so they even allow it for mental health cases? I think they will. I think they Yeah, I think that's cool. It's hard to go against when the doctors say something. I think just as any organization you got, you know, check with your doctor. Exactly. And that there was a at Hopkins there was a big for us a big medical screening, mental health screening, making sure the spouses and family understood what we were doing. There was a very very uh thorough uh review of all of us. Where were you a priest? I was in Well, at that time I was in Seattle. I was in a in Seattle. Yeah. Mercer Island, which is uh near Seattle. Did you ever have any congregants ask you about psychedelics? No. And cannabis had gotten le No. People just in 2016. Yeah. I was there from 2008. People just weren't talking about it. I mean, we had definitely the research was happening, but I didn't and I pay attention to stuff. I'd read Paulin's article in the New Yorker that was kind of the precursor to the book, but um so I vaguely knew, but it was not on my radar at all. And I saw an ad for the study in Christian Century magazine. They were looking for religious leaders and I was like, "Oh my god." Yeah. Like Johns Hopkins cares what clergy think about anything. I'm in. I literally thought that. And then uh then I went to have the screen and and I didn't think I'd get in because I thought everyone would want to do it. It took like six years to fill it up because there were a lot of they couldn't find rabbis who had not done psychedelics. Oh, you had to have not done them previously. Two things. Religious. We had to pass the physical and mental, but uh you had to be psychedically naive and you had to be uh working in a religious setting. So a church or synagogue or school or something like that and they couldn't find rabbis that had not had the experience. Judaism does not have the same puritanical baggage that we have in Christianity. So and a lot of the researchers and a lot of Ramdas and Timothy I mean there was a there was and there were other there were very in the 60s and 70s prominent Jewish voices that were talking about psychedelics. Ah okay. Okay. So, they were more comfortable with it, much more comfortable. And a rabbi friend of mine said the law the legal part for Jew often legal things for Jews have been used to for harm for Jews. So, they're they're much more willing to break laws if they feel like there's a just reason to do it. Okay? Which I think I think Christians should be a little more aware of that. But if there's a just reason to do it and they'll they're willing to do it. They don't have the same attachment to the uh dominant culture as Christians do because we are the dominant culture. What was your do like dogmatic worldview at that time? Like if someone were to ask you was Jesus literally a man that died on the cross at that time before going in if you can remember. Yeah. No. Yeah. Jesus was a human figure who died on a on the cross at rose again in three days. Certainly Orthodox Christian things. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Uh yeah. So very mid Yeah. Yeah. Very standard. I mean on the on the more it's Episcopal Church, so more on the progressive end of things. Like I'd be willing to, you know, could say that there's things that we there's stories in scripture that aren't factually true. Although the truth of those stories is what's important. The truth is beyond the facts. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But but yeah, you were what like in the Midwest we'd consider like a straight line Christian basically. Yeah. Yeah. I was Yeah. But I I grew up in the Episcopal church in a small town in Kentucky where most people were Southern Baptist or or some So it was always a minority view. Okay. I grew up in the Bible belt, but it was I didn't grow up in a really dogmatic Christian family or or church, biscuit church. So So what was it like? You took two full doses as far or they took give you it's different measures but full two full doses. Yeah. Two full doses. One a little the second one a little higher than the first second a little higher a month before I lots of preparation lots of zoo. So I flew to Baltimore to be screened and meet the team and then they determined if I would be accepted into the study and I was. And that was just like blood work and blood pressure. Blood work, blood pressure, medical, mental health, a normal mental physical screening. Physical and mental health screening. And then a lot of questions about my own spiritual life, my own had I had mis like sense of my own experiences of God. Not in a not in a just in a real broad way. Just those kind of questions like what's your spiritual life like? Actually, I want to ask about that. Had you had any mystical experiences before psychedelics and what what maybe you could touch on a few of those if you've had those moments. Yeah, a lot. As as a child, I grew up in a small town. I was outside a lot. I felt so connected to God in nature, which a lot of people say that, but I really did and I still do. I'm glad we're sitting outside. Um, so I mean I would spend hours as a little kid on my back on the trampoline just staring at the clouds and would spend time in the fields behind our house just climbing on stuff and I just felt very safe and very connected to something beyond myself. So yeah, I did have those. And then as I got older, less and less and then I in my 20s, late 20s and early 30s, I uh I was married. My my wife and I had a son and I'd always go although I'd always gone to church but we we became members of a church close to our house in Atlanta where 80% of the congregation lived with severe and persistent mental illness. So very unusual place. Uh it was a how many% 80. So it was a it was a church that had almost closed and then the dasis had said let's see if we can the neighborhood had changed. It was redlined so a lot of the black people had moved in from the formerly white neighborhoods. The big houses became group homes for people with mental illness. And so the priests there invited people to come over for coffee. This was in the 80s. And then they began to become part of the church. And then there was a arch program. It's still it's called Church of the Holy Comforter, which is another name for the Holy Spirit, which I appreciate. And uh we started going there and then I got involved in that in that work where there's the there were these are people with no money, serious mental health conditions, many of them black, had kind of uh burned all their family bridges because of their mental illness and exhausted their resources. So lived on very little money in group homes and the church became their spiritual home. And even if they didn't know what the Episcopal church was, they were completely accepted in that community. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays, there was an art program with painting and poetry and woodturning. There was an organic garden. And then on Wednesday nights, there was a supper that to other churches brought meals. And we would eat together and pray together and go to church together. And it was the first time in my life that I'd seen the church really with the people that I think Jesus would be with. Not and not just like I mean soup kitchens and those things are really important that it wasn't outreach. it was the church and those of us that had jobs and drove cars and came, you know, had uh more conventional lives supported and were in community with people that I probably would never have known. And so it five years there I always had this nudge to go to seminary and it was there that I finally saw the church. I think at the time thought there's a re I'll answer your question just a second because it was a very unusual place. So that probably three or four year three years there. We my family and I were to baptism. We knew the little girl that was getting baptized. The the priest and the they went to the back of the church where the baptismal font was and there were uh there was a guy one of the guys there very seriously mentally ill. Whatever the hymn was we were singing connected him deeply. He started sobbing. So he was he was sobbing. John or James was his name. And then the baby was crying in the back because she was getting cold water put on her. And in that moment, this it's kind of really I felt the whole room collapse on itself. And there's that story of Thomas Merton realizing that we're all like the we're all and I had that one one of those moments where I just like, "Oh my god, we're they're crying and we're all there's we've all got pain. We've all got joy and we've got a community and it was like this great coming together for an instant of everything being okay." And so I went to seminary with that energy. I so I decided that I was in my late mid I was 36 or seven and it was or 35 at the time took two years to get all that done and then went to seminary at 37. But I went out of that energy of the healing potential of community and I think it's c I know now see this the full loop of that but uh important place for me. So that was one place. Another time at communion I'd uh I'd had that on the receiving end of communion where I just had this very strong energetic connection. So I think I was the pump was primed for a big experience. I'd year before I was at Hopkins I'd been on a 10day This is important story too. Been on a 10-day meditation retreat. Whoa. Six hours vaposa meditation. Vaposa. You did a vapa. 10day vaposa ret. Were you a priest? Yeah. And you went on a vaposa? Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. There. Yeah. Oh, they were very open to Christians. Yeah. For those who don't know, a vaposa retreat is basically where you sit incredibly still for like 10 hours a day for 10 days and it hurts. It hurts. It hurts. And I'm fidgety and ADD and you all move and you get itches and you can't itch them and you just sit there and it's it's everyone if you can make it through. Most people I know that have done it say it's life-changing. It's not it's it's a religious. Yeah, it's a religious. Yeah. There there's nothing technique. It's a meditation technique. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There's no dogma. There's just And it was the hard was one of the hardest thing I've ever done, but it was the hardest 10 days of my life for sure. So, and there was a connection to my first experience at Hopkins. So, at that, and I'll say more about it when I talk about my experience, but I had I was in the meditation hall. You had to sign this thing that said you wouldn't leave. I mean, you could. I mean, they weren't holding you against your will, but they want you to if you're coming, they want you to stay. Yeah. And about three the first three days, you notice the breath across your nostrils. I mean, it is you can't have anything to read. You go back to your room, you're just you could walk. That's the only thing you could. And so, about day three, I thought I was going to lose my mind. I l and right after I thought, "Oh my god, I don't think I can do this." This guy stands up and screams and runs out. We never saw him again. And I thought, "I'm not gonna do that." Because basically to say what you're saying, you have to focus on the air coming in and out of your nose. And you that's the only thing you focus on for three days. All you're every time you think of something else, you're supposed to come back to your nose and all you do is think about the air coming in and out of your nose while you breathe, right? And then for three and a half days. And then then they bring introduce a technique which is a body scan. Then you get to do some other work. But but it was it was a hard that was a hard practice. I value it. But about day five on the in the hall with aboutund other people, I had this experience of this energetic it's a it's it's a symbol you see in spiritual. It's a circle, a spiral. And it was on my left thigh. And it was really strong. And it seemed like it had come from nowhere. And I remember thinking, "Oh my god, I don't know what that is, but that seems important." and it saying it now it's like well that's but it seemed really important at the time and then I forgot about and then there's a connection to my experience at Hopkins which I can talk about in some point but so to your answer to your question a long answer to a short question yes I had had mystical experiences before as a priest I'd had them on the receiving end of communion attending people's deaths that have happened and uh I think we all have them I just don't I think we all have the potential to have them I just don't think all of us are open to it and the longer I was working as a parish priest, the harder it was for me to have those experiences. Honestly, I can say more often less often. I would I would see other people or I would sometimes at communion I would or the baptism, but it was not like those early experiences I'd had. Do you think that's because you kind of see how the sausage gets made like you're facilitating these things and so now you're looking at the volume and the distractions and so you you you're not in the moment as much anymore when those moments are happening because you're kind of the you're the guy. You're the MC of it all. the MC. Yeah. And there's that. And then I think as I got more and more into professional church work, I became more and more concerned of like maintenance, administration, growing the church. So I I moved I think from my body to my head and I a lot of people say that and I it I'm not sure I would have snapped out of it if it hadn't been for my experience at Hopkins, which I'll talk about in a minute. But I went I was very much like what book can I read? What conference can I go to? the churches we like what are we go and it just was all head work. It happens man. Do you think that happens to a lot of pastors? That's I think it happens to a lot of pastors. Okay. And it happens it's the western mind. So yeah I think then I think a lot of people go to seminary or feel called to service in the church whether ordained or not and because they have an experience of God and then when you get into the business of God it's harder. I mean I'm not saying people don't and like that's why my retreats were important, my meditation practice was important. I did that vaposa retreat on my sbatical when I was in Seattle. So it was the very end of my sabbatical and I went on that 10-day retreat. So it was an important and it was very important. It really the whole sabbatical and that retreat really revived me for my work. Who would you recommend do a vapasa retreat? I'm actually like I haven't seen many inside of a Christian circles that know about them or would endorse them because I think vapasa just sounds like a Buddhist word. Yeah. And so I think right away they're like that's not something that I could probably touch. And so it is surprising to me that as a priest you knew about them and did one. Yeah. No, I Yeah. And I I my musician at the church where I was very the church musician was very involved in it. I knew other clergy that had done it but it it was newish to me and but my friend Jack said you should go do this on end of your sobatical. And he set me up and I went. So who should do one if you're thinking I think anybody that's trying to de well I think everyone should have a meditation practice and there's there's Christian circles that say that's not that you shouldn't do that but meditation is just prayer where you shut up and actually I don't know listen to God like instead of giving God a laundry list of things you want. So that is such a good definition man that's so but I yeah so I think God meditation is just listening to God. So you know there's even Christian resistance to meditation in general. Centering prayer comes out of the Christian tradition which was is a way to talk about meditation contemplation. That's Richard Roar and Thomas Keading and there's lots of Christian leaders that talk about that and we should be. But I say anybody that wants to have a deeper deeper a deeper knowledge of ourselves and of God. I think it's quiet down just get quiet be by yourself and be still. Did you know about Thomas Merin and Thomas Keading before this? And you follow the contemplative Christian. Yeah, I did. I had written reading. You were in there. I was I was in there. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. When I was in my 20s, I dab I didn't never dabbled in Buddhism, but I was reading I was reading a lot of Buddhist text. I now I would say I was looking for that. I was looking for something that I wasn't getting out of my own tradition even as Episcopal in the Episcopal church, which still has a smattering of contemplation in it. It's not all talking all the time, although there's too much talking. But I but I read a book from a Buddhist monk named Tiknad Han who's and the great the book living Buddha living Christ and there he says if you can find this it's on all traditions if you can find it in yours go there first and I was like back to so then I then I then I just started exploring it in the Christian tradition. So I I was yeah I was yeah I was pretty I was there I always I for many many times did retreats at monasteries and convents is part of my practice. What what do you say to people that say while you're the dangers of meditating is that if you get that silent negative entities can enter you and sort of trick you in that moment. Yeah. What do you say to that? I'd say just pray before you sit. I mean didn't prayer strong enough if that that's a concern. I mean I think uh yeah I mean we have we have and there yeah you are open but we're also open to people talking at us all the time and the devil getting in there too if that's your screen. Yeah exactly open to that. Yeah but I I mean there I would say that the resistance to that deep contemplation is the institutional church wanting to do all the talking and the teaching. Okay. So by this time you are you've had some spiritual experiences, some mystical moments, some awe, some reverence that's happened in your life. Yes. And now you're preparing to do these doses of heavy doses of psychedelic mushrooms, psilocybin therapy. And I would love to know sort of not necessarily the blocking and tackling of like how what you did and you laid down and put a mask on and that but your if you recall your visceral sort of what what happened and and what was surprising and you know Oh yeah. So much and that that story from the the poster retreat is really important to this. It was the key pivot for me in this. So yeah, show up. I know my I know my guides. We've been working on Zoom and or we've been meeting online and so I knew them and trusted them. They were wonderful, amazing people. And uh got to the session on that morning. We checked in. Uh we I had a prescription for psilocybin from the pharmacy at Hopkins. I mean, it's a it's a standardized dose. They got to write to write. Yeah, they had to write a script and write a script and which I love the fact that I was had a script prescription for a schedule one drug. Can you save it? Can you save the paper? No, I didn't get they had to turn it in. Yeah, I did. There is I do have a souvenir from that that I just found the other day, but um so uh yeah, and so music, headset, all that. And it's it came on, but it was pretty subtle and it was these beautiful colors and few like colors. I didn't greens and purples and uh and you had your eyes closed. Yeah. Eye shades. Eye shades and a headset on. Yeah. They you don't do visual close you. You're in your head. Right. Right. So, and only get up to go to the bathroom or a couple times they kind of have you look sit up. So, and I'm just settling in and I can feel my can feel myself relaxing and the colors are happening and I have this visual of of me in this glass box and so I'm just and then uh that circle that spiral comes to my left thigh from that vipasa retreat. You feel it. I feel it. I'd forgotten I'd totally forgotten about it. But your eyes are closed and you feel your left eye. This swirling spiral in my left eye like holy. That was at a year and a half ago at the vaposa retreat. That was five days in. I'm I had no idea how I wasn't I had no idea how long I'd been. An hour an hour and a half. And I thought I thought to myself, this is real. That that was my thought I had. And at that moment, it's almost like I I've used this analogy before. It's like lifting the hook on a screen door. I lifted the hook in my mind of the screen door and let whatever needed to come in come in. That was my that was how I was thinking about it. And it all of a sudden I my body became electrified from my I don't didn't have the language then, but my lower chakra my low chakra. I I didn't have I knew I'd heard chakras, but I didn't really know what they were. And it it started at the base of my spine and it was strong and it was moving up my spine. It was a physical sensation physical. This was and that was very strong like oh okay and it starts coming up my spine and it gets right here and I to your throat it's not moving and I'm and it's getting there's the pressure building and I started thinking oh this has got to come out and it's going to come out. It's going to come out. At one point I thought my Adam's apple was going to explode. Was it painful? No, but it was kind of It was getting there. I Were you getting scared? Yeah, it was like it was like a blood it was like a blood clot or something, but it was energy and Yeah, I was I was Yeah, it was unnerving. Yeah, it was unnerving. And one of the guides touched me on the shoulder uh as part of the protocol to remind they could tell I was struggling and as soon as he did that, the like the the current went up a thousand%. It's the only way I can describe it. and it blew out blew out here and just went out the top of my head in my in my mind that energy just threw out went out the top of my head and I I don't know because I've never spoken in tongues. I've seen it. But I was making sounds that felt that seemed like prayer and moaning and prayer and they I didn't recognize what they were. And uh I think in the moment I thought, is this is this glossia? Is this speaking in tongues? And but I but then and then I are you feeling euphoric? Is it good? Are you scared? Like what's happening in that? That was scary. And then when that then I'm just popped. I'm I'm just out. I am just out in the cosmos. I mean, I'm aw total awe and just amazing shocked amazing things are happening. Amazing things are happen. Wait, did you go out with the energy? Does your like consciousness No, I just felt like I I guess I could say I felt like I left my body. I I just didn't I didn't My body was not gone. You were not aware of it. I was in the universe. Your mind was somewhere else. Some scary. It was not scary. You were not fear fearful at all. I was with two leading researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital. there was nothing that was going to go wrong. And you know, difficult stuff can come up. I had some there's some family things that came up that I remember. Nothing really traumatic, but some sadness and then some friends that I'd lost touch with. So I I spent a lot of time on those relationships and I had real compassion for this. It was a really not a big thing, but as a kid it was traumatic and I just had such compassion for it was me sing I was singing at a family thing and the adults laughed at me and I remember it was a I sort of blocked it sort of was part of my throat chakra thing I think and I remembered that and I just saw all these adults in my family I had such love for them and I realized you know they weren't laughing at me they was just funny because I didn't know what I was doing but it was that was a kind of eight years old so but anyway so but once you remember that in that moment. Yeah. Did you remember that before in your life? I had thought about it for years and years and years. I No, I didn't. I probably hadn't thought about it since it happened, honestly. And I was right. It was we were at a at a VAC it was in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky at this vacation lodge, just my extended family, and all we were all my cousin and brother and all the adults. We were just in this place together and we were just eating and carrying on and I was singing and they laughed and none of them would remember. Sure. And I saw all the adults and I just had such love for them. And so you think I would classify that as maybe in that moment you were forgiving them? Oh, I was right. Because of the love for them and it was a it was a wound that I would not have it was I think it was part of the throat chakra. Yeah. It was like trauma stored in the nervous system and that fire of electricity was somehow working it out for I never sang again. And if when I did as a priest I You never sang again. Well, I never sang publicly. Right. Right. But to think of what singing is Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. and you never got to do it or you never, you know, did it. I know. And I've lost my confidence. Y and so anyway, that was a that was a big and then some friendships that I'd lost track of and uh but it was that it was that dramatic embodied presence of the spirit which you know when you're in the moment it's it's only on reflection that you start putting pieces together. But I that phrase from scripture that the body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. It's like that's not really about not smoking and drinking. That's really about the body is actually where the spirit lives and it's moving in me and through me and around holding us together and that it's an ener that the spirit is an energetic force. Well, that's like our real energetic force. It's why we're auto why we're Yeah, we have locomotive abilities. The wind the spirit the wind blows where it will and the it's energy. God I would say God is energy but the spirit is energy and it was in my body. It was in my body right now. I just was this part of my brain was turned off. So I was just open to it and I needed I needed to come back to my body and my heart. I was leading out of my head and it that's not my some people are really good leading out of their head. I'm not. And I've lost this deep connection to my body and the wisdom of my body and it's brought me back in a very dramatic way. Were you crying? Did you cry at all? I didn't cry. I didn't I don't No, I didn't cry. I laughed. I laughed some. I could yawned a lot. I yawned. CNS release. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, a lot of that and laughter and I smile. Smiled and it was beautiful. And even the harder the harder things were beautiful. It just I felt so I felt I felt the love of Christ, the love of the people that were with me, the love of my family and friends. And it I was work. Yeah. There were some hard things. nothing nothing terrible, but yeah, just life and kind of work through things that I was trying to reconcile just back in my head again. Then I'd come back out of my head. So, I think the lesson for me, the biggest thing was really get your we we got to use our intellects. They're a gift, but they've got to be balanced with the heart and the body. You got to keep them in tension. So, you're having this experience. I'd like to know about the comedown, the like it's it's it's dissipating because it only lasts for a couple hours or whatever. It's about peak at about 3. Uh, it was about a 6-hour experience. Sure. And so when you're when now you're coming back to your senses, right? You're out you're in your body again. You're sitting there, but you're you're feeling all the energy from what happened. Like what how did it end? How did you take the mask off and then what's going running through your mind? What's you just you did it. You did mushrooms. Like I I was I knew as it was happening that I was it was dramatic. Like I knew I was like this is a little off the chain. I remember thinking like this I was moaning and like move flailing around and I was I was a lot and uh I remember thinking okay and then the team came in right so they gave me I I was very curious to to hear how it went because there were lots of things I didn't remember. You wanted feedback. I wanted feedback. I wanted to Yeah, I did. I wanted to see what it was like to be in I think what it was like to be in the room with me and the whole team came in and it was there was a there was a a there was an aeros there was a there was an embodied not sexual but there was a embodied erotic experience to it too that that was really beyond sex it wasn't sensorial very and like like yeah like sexless sex I it's hard to explain okay u in fact I I think this is in the New York article that Michael Pollenro, I think it is, but it felt like it felt like a sexless orgasm. Okay. I I remember thinking it was I I remember thinking this is what it must feel like for a woman to have an orgasm. That's how it felt. It felt internal and it and I felt there was there were times where I was laboring. I felt like, oh, this is like this is laboring. This is what women So, I had this connection to the female experience in a way. that I think we, you know, we all have aspects of masculine feminine, but I that was the first time that I felt like, oh, this is this is what it feels like to have a baby. This is what it feels like for a woman to have an orgasm. Oh, I'm a bit of an expert on the woman orgasm myself. I would say so I would compare it like I imagine that they have more of a full body experience. Exactly. And ours is more localized. That's kind of how I explain it to men. I'm going to use that. I don't quote you as a sexologist. Yeah, that's exactly right. A full body. It was full. It was Thank you. That actually is very clarifying. It was a full body experience. You are. That's exactly right. There's no women present, so it's easy to be Exactly. No women watch our channel. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Bro, it's a bro fest. Yeah. Yeah. No, but that Yeah, that's that's it felt like an expanded sensation. Yeah, it was actually really So you're coming to I still want to know like you're now so I guess you were really curious now you're back. I mean you're back and you're like this all just happened and it doesn't sound like you felt bad about what happened. You felt Yeah. You I felt lighter and you felt lighter. So a friend of So they my my then wife went came on the second time but you have to have somebody come with you. I had a friend in DC clergy friend in DC. I stayed with him and his family. Then he drove me up to Baltimore that morning and hung out and then came back to pick me up. And he said when he walked in, he's he's he's he was on our board for he's on our board, but he said this on another interview. He said, "I looked at him and I'm like, I want what he I want what that happened to him." He said, "I was like on fire. I was I was radiant." He said like I was just beaming. And you felt it. You felt Oh, I felt I felt like maybe a little dramat I felt like a new creation. I felt like a different I didn't feel like a different person. I felt like I had healed something. I I know I did. I'd healed some things. I healed some serious things. I'd healed this throat blockage thing that had It's hard. Yeah. And there let me say one more thing about that because I think it's important. So fast forward, I moved to Savannah. I'm talking to a friend of mine who Episcopal priest who had came from the Pentecostal tradition and and he was very he was and he had he had done some work with Matthew Fox who was a Catholic priest who's a prolific writer but he said first of all he said from his Pentecostal background he said that feels like that feels like a spiritual technology which like in this Pentecostal tradition we use music and lights and just getting people into this non-ordinary state of consciousness. Translike state. Translike state. Yeah. And that so he said that then he said, "Have you read Matthew Fox?" And I said, "A little bit." He said his book on the chakra. So Matthew Fox is a was a Catholic priest. Now he's an episcopal priest and uh he wrote a book that talks about the seven deadly sins which he uses seven original blessings. But and he connects those to each of the seven chakras and then take connects the seven chakras to the seven sacraments. Not every tradition has seven sacraments, but the Episcopal Church, the Catholic Church has seven sacraments. And the sacrament attached to the throat chakra is the sacrament of ordination, which is to say the sacrament of leadership in the community. I mean, it's not just I mean, we've done that for clergy, but it's really the sacrament of acknowledging leadership. And that's what was blocked was my throat chakra was blocked. What I think so interesting is that you really had no honestly knowledge of chakras. No. And so what an amazing thing to have something that starts down at the base, goes all the way up, gets stuck in your throat specifically, and then you find out there's all this literature out there of people who have studied these energy centers and it maps to the your exact Exactly. blind experience not knowing what that is. Bingo. Bingo. That's incredible. And you're in a position of leadership, right? Yeah. I mean, it was ordained person, but I always be careful to say like we've the church has taken this thing that's acknowledging leadership and made it a little private club there. It's it really is bigger than just but it's a part it's proclamation and that that was the throat thing and uh I felt stymied often about preaching when I knew that if something I was going to say was going to be offensive to somebody that might have some power and I I I was m I had muted myself and that so yeah that's the the prophetic voice that you don't need we don't need to bring it out all the time but sometimes we got to be prophetic and uh yeah so that that That was a major. And that was two years later when I get this whole download about the chakras. That was You didn't know for two years. No, I knew I'd had to. I I began to read about Kundalini awakening. That's really what that was. And uh so I dabbled in this, but I but it was my friend that said, "No, there's Matthew Fox maps each of the chakras to one of the sacraments." But you didn't know about kundalini when this happened. No. Gosh, no. No. I mean, what you just described is the verbatim kundalini description. It is exactly anyone online that's had one. I had never heard of that. That's bonkers. Yeah. Yeah. CNS upgrade. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Um so what was the fallout two weeks? Not fallout, but just what was what happened weeks after that? Well, I went back to Seattle and sort of everyone goes, "How was it?" Well, I didn't tell anybody. I told my boy I I No, I This was pre Michael Pollen's book. This was 2016. Michael Pollen's book is How to Change Your Mind. came out in 2018, New York Times bestseller. He talked about a lot of different psychedelics, right? But that was that had not and it was I I didn't say I didn't say anything to anybody. I didn't even tell my family. Told my wife and I didn't tell my son till he was out older. But Lisa co-workers I didn't tell No, I said I'd gone to a meditate I was doing I was a part of a study at Hopkins around meditation. I just didn't I I was a stigma in that when that Oh god. I I had a stigma. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would not enough stigma to not do it, but I just not telling anybody. And I had very very close friends that had done a lot of psychedelics and I I told them, but they're like, "What's the big deal?" And I was like, "Well, you know, there it is a big deal." But um so yeah, I did I sat on and then a month later I'm back at Hopkins. But I I didn't say anything to very many people at all until I started Legar. So I sat on it for so I sat on for five years. Whoa. And I eventually did more psychedelics, but I did not talk about it with I called my mother when I was going to leave the church and said, "I need to tell you something." And so she was like, "Oh, she was curious." So, I mean, it wasn't a problem, but I just didn't tell it. Just Yeah, there was Yeah, thank you. There was I had a Yeah, I had stigma. I wouldn't have guilt. I just didn't want to I thought people think it was weird. Rocks the boat. I didn't want to rock. It's just like too much. Too much long conversation, right? That I don't want to have. Yeah. So, are you really excited because four weeks later you're going back to do it again. Oh gosh, yes. Yeah. And I remember. And they said, "You want a little more?" And I said, "Oh, yeah. Give me one more." Connect me back to the source. Connect me back to the source. And uh it was a very different experience. But about about two hours in, I got up to go to the bathroom. I ended up calling that the like the two-hour orgasm. Although again, that's not really what it was, but that was kind of my shortand for it. I said I got back from using the bathroom and I said, "Well, guess we're not going to have the two-hour orgasm." And then I put the eye shades back on and then my body reactivated in a different way. But yeah, it's worth noting like a condalini is not something that happens every time. Gosh, it's incredibly rare actually in that area in that to happen at all. Oh yeah, it's rare. I've never experienced that either. Yeah, for sure. how I would get close to it especially in the this is important too. So the Hopkins playlist is what we use the Hopkins psilocybin playlist found on Spotify and other places is the standard for that research at Hopkins and there was a piece in there by a Christian Hindu uh guy named Russell Paul musician and it's it's there's only two things that aren't really Christian on there. I mean it kind he's Christian but but it's more seems more Hindu and it w that was the that was the music that sent me that that music was playing when at the kundalini awakening or kuni and so for about a month I could put that headset I could put the headsets on and get close not the full thing you could get the aroma of it I could feel my body starting to move yeah like and I it's happened later with other psychedelics but not anything close to that that experience but I my body can start moving. So, did you immediately want to share it with other people who you saw might have like knots in their system that might need to come out? I I knew that I knew the first time I knew it was going to change my I knew it was going to change my work. I didn't know how. And so, I didn't I didn't and when I came to Savannah, there was one. Did you want to and you didn't or you just I just didn't I I knew the timing wasn't right. Okay. I just knew the timing. And then when Paul's book came out is I did talk a little bit more about it, but even then I didn't want to I didn't when and I preached about it, but I didn't say I preached about some of those experiences, but I didn't say I said it happened during meditation. That's how I would frame it, which I it kind of was. It was a non-ordinary state of consciousness for sure. So I talked about it, but I didn't say how I got there. But you weren't at the point where you're like, let's spike the water at do with LSD. You weren't there yet. No, I was not I was not a psychedelic evangelist. I was not a psychedelic evangelist, but I but but going back to this experience I had at the church in Atlanta and some depression and addiction in my own family. I was and so I was really sensitive to it and uh the mental health connection was really important to me. And I also realize in most churches we're not people are not being honest about and I would know sometimes if somebody was an alcoholic or family was dealing with some kind of serious problem for a parent or child I would know a little bit about it but people just were not honest about their it's still a stigma about mental health still well I think one of the interesting things is how uh uh readily available uh pharmaceutical prescription drugs are and how how everybody's open to do open to taking SSRIs, you know, benzo, just the whole thing. And how many people are on them? And there is sort of a stigma about them, but everybody's still on them. And then here comes this thing that science is showing is can be better than those uh and has lower downside risks and all of these things, but there's some superstition attached to this that isn't attached to pharmaceuticals and or alcohol or the number one the number one medicine. The worst of the worst. Yeah. The one that really lets demons in. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's called spirits. Yeah. So, yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. So, spirits. Exactly. So, I mean, the most destructive of all of Well, not of some, but I mean, a very destructive drug is, and that's socially acceptable. That's how we're medicating. Most people are medicating with alcohol. So, yeah. So, so does it. You know, one of the things that I've always thought about and I've I've thought about a long time is if you read about the early Christians, they were just ecstatic. like they could not. It said they just ran all over the place telling everybody about Jesus. They sold all their possessions. There was a fanaticism. Yeah. About the early Christian church that quite frankly, I kept thinking about it because it doesn't exist today. And like in the churches, everybody believes and they'd say they believe, but no one's like trying to tell everybody. Like no one's I think it exists, but I think it's just as small as it was back then, which is maybe Yeah. And I don't mean nobody and those things. But by and large, as far as Christian culture is concerned, there isn't this like I don't know this huge this urge to to tell everybody. And I so I was always like, well, what is that? What happened? Well, I think it's the difference. I think it was close enough to the actual experience. And I think what you did. No, I think what the early church was close enough to the whatever happened at the resurrection, whatever happened that was close and it was remembered in a very I mean they were these people were encountering you know in the gospels they're encountering their former teacher and friend. He's not the same. But a lot of people were fanatics without seeing it. Yeah. Right. Later. Yes. Later. I think they were more open to experiences of God. I think we've gotten ourselves, which is where the Pentecostal tradition really has something to offer, although I think there's problems there too. But the immediate experience of God is a very normal thing in Pentecostal circles. The direct experience with the divine and I think that's missing in most most of Western Christianity and we've sanitized it and we've we've sanitized the Eucharist to, you know, we've sanitized everything to something that's sort of socially acceptable. Well, and I think I I don't I think that's true. I don't u moralize it or judge because I don't necessarily think that it was some evil or bad person. I think personally what happens is that these mystical experiences, these divine encounters happen and everybody gets really excited about it because it kind of changes your life and heals you and you want everybody else to have it. Exactly. And so then you're like, well, how'd you do it? You're like, well, I sat here and I did this and I drank that and this happened and somehow it works a little bit, but eventually it kind of stops working and no one knows why if you're not connected to it. And and so you were trying to like formulaically create these divine experiences and they're like this is the way this is the way to do it cuz it happened to that guy and let's do it this way cuz that's the way to do it. And if the divine leaves it but you still keep doing it now it turns into dogma and I don't understand that. I I think it has to have a direct experience. And I think the power I I I think the power is still in those in the ritual of baptism in the ritual of communion and in the laying on of hands. It's still but we've part of it is that we don't really believe it or we don't we're we've to overintellectualized things and we've made it sort of sterile but I think the power is still in those there are still 100% I mean I because I've had that one of those experiences I said earlier was at a at a baptism other time was at communion or praying with people as they're dying it it's there and sitting outside spontaneously sometimes but I'm not sure what you thought about regarding uh heaven and hell and accepting Jesus and those who don't go to hell forever. Um but what is it what did it make what did you think about it before maybe and then what did it make you think about if somebody has these divine experiences in India and they were raised Hindu and for some reason they have a friend who dies and then they have this experience of awe with God while their friend's funeral is going but they've never been preached about Jesus and like is that a is that also a um true experience that they had or is that somehow fake because it isn't under the umbrella of the Eucharist or of these traditions as I've heard Richard Roar say if it's true in one place it's true in every place so if it's if it's true in the Hindu tradition or the Muslim or Jewish or traditions then it's it's it would be experienced differently in the Christian community but the the capital T truth of whatever that is if it's true there it's true here so did you believe that before you did I was not I was pretty I again I grew up in a fairly I did not hell never made sense to me okay the idea of hell of eternal damnation never or my family I guess but that was never part of it so I didn't have that overlay mean there were plenty of things that I had to undo I guess but that was not one and I've it never made sense to me that because somebody happened to live in a Muslim or Hindu country that they were somehow doomed to hell because they never heard about Jesus that never made sense to me okay so you're already there I was already there yeah so and I think I think that's done a lot of damage to I think it's done a lot of damage But that's part of the Christian tradition. Uh but yeah, I I I think I think I just like that Tiknad Han reading him brought me back to Christianity. I think my friendships and relationships with Jews and Muslims and Buddhists, Hindus make me a better Christian and a better human. More importantly, make me a better human. So yeah, I don't I don't think they're in competition with each other. I think they can inform each other and they're each unique. They're not the same, but they're have their own unique cultural history and experience. But I think that rings true. I think that's scriptural even honestly. I mean it uh Bible says the rocks will cry out if nobody does. But like if you if you envision that as saying the rocks are saying Jesus is this this this rocks don't say that. Rocks don't say anything but they are talking. And what's the what what language are they speaking? What are they say? What how are they speaking? How are they crying out? And I think that's the way to kind of think of it's more mystical. It's more mystical of a message than a literal message. And I think that that is lost a lot of times to people. I don't need to be concerned about this about somebody that grew up in the Hindu tradition. If they're if they if that's giving their life meaning and purpose and direction, I don't need to worry about them. I think that's a I agree with you, but I think that's a controversial statement to a lot of people. Well, maybe. But but as I think it was Gandhi said, I like your Christ. I just don't like your Christians. I mean, I think there's it's Christians that don't see Muslims re rever Jesus and Mary the mother of Jesus. We're the it's part of our cultural age that we we uh and Christianity is I mean it's my tradition. I think it's I think it's it's my life-giving tradition and I think the Christ consciousness or the Christ transcends the walls that the church has put around it. I think the the Christ experience is not just for Christians. I I often think of when Jesus said, "There's only two rules, two commandments. Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." And then we went and made a bunch of new rules. That's plenty. That's plenty right there. And we made a bunch of new rules. And I'm like, well, if he came back today, he'd be like, "What are all these rules? What the hell are you just hear me?" Like, that's it. Like, he didn't say that to go make new rules. And so, how do we make a bunch of new rules after he says that? He's like, "Love God and love each other and that's it." And that's the lens. That's the filter and the lens. And if it doesn't do that, don't muddy up the waters. Well, and the former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, uh, Michael Curry said, "If it's not about love, it's not about God." And I think that's so that's a good that's a good easy lens to look through, too. So, yeah. I mean, Jesus was clear, right? And Jesus said, "Don't he also said don't worship me." He said, "Follow me. Live like I live." Yeah. And we're not doing that very well. So yeah, we've and the church is my home and I love the church and the church is the vessel for this wisdom and these rituals and this tradition and this love and we need to I I want the church to wake up to its own power. Mhm. And psychedelics is not the only way to do that but it is at least for me it was a way to see clearly that the things we talk about the things we preach about the things we do are real. Well, and I think to your point, they've had uh they've put monks into MRIs that have been meditating for 30 years because they want to see what happens to their brains. Um, and it could be contemplative Christians. That's a monk. Contemplative Christian is a monk, right? Yeah. You know, they do the same thing fundamentally. And so they put them in an MRI and they measure their brains and then they put somebody on mushrooms in an MRI and all the same stuff fires. Same thing. And so you can, it's not that mushrooms or psilocybin is like the thing, but it turns out there's like a marathon of of a a daily meditative practice and your brain starts to change in the same way. It does. And if somebody a monk or nun that lives in a convent or monastery, they've dedicated their life to that. Like that's not how most Christians or Buddhists are able. Sure. We've got got work, we got be and called to be in the world. So, and we need to So, my meditation practice I I said before the Hopkins experience, I I said it was I I used to say I I have a half-ass meditation practice, but uh it re and it it comes and goes, but I had a deep experience that the vaposa retreat connected me to, but after that those sessions at Hopkins, I I was in and I I could get to the I could get to a place close to that, which which is not a parlor trick. just reminded me that it the power of it that I know I know something I don't believe okay but I know now I know that my the spirit is moving in my body I don't need to read that in the Bible that the Bible affirms it but you had a visual experience I had a visceral experience of the spirit moving in my body and yeah so you do the second one it sounds like a lot of different things happened there it was a different experience and should we go into that a little bit I can talk a little bit about because it's connected that was the first one was more about me personally, I guess, just about working through some things and waking up to my body. The second one, it is uncomfortable, physically uncomfortable. I'm not, it's not the same the first as the first time, but I'm real fidgety and I can't get comfortable and I'm I'm flipping over on my stomach and uh just really uncomfortable and I'm rock at one point I'm rock I'm sitting up and I'm rocking and then I'm flat on my stomach and uh I remember what's going on. You were in pain. No, I wasn't in pain. It was just my body was and I when I when I was doing this I was thinking I'd seen I'd seen men Jewish men in Israel doing this that's rocking like and then I was on my stomach and I my head I was on the sofa but my head was on the pillow. I was like oh this is like Muslims praying when they put their head on the ground. So I had this real connection to prayer prayer. And then I'm like oh I was then I was flat on my stomach. I'm like, "Oh, in the Episcopal church, Catholic church, Anglican tradition, the ordinand typically prostrates in front of the altar or in the Episcopal church can kneel." And for whatever reason, I'm like, "I am not prostrating myself. I'm going to kneel in my ordination to the priesthood." And I did. And then and that when I was on the on my stomach, I thought, "Oh, this is like my ordination. Oh, this is an expansion of my ordination." And I thought this is an expansion of my ordination at the feet of the universe 2.0. Yeah. Or or something. Yeah. I don't know. Whoa. It's not to diminish the other one. It's just it was it expanded it. I don't And so I didn't and I wrote that, you know, you write all that down and I would go back to it. But that's how I that's what I feel like I'm doing now. Not to sound, it's not to be hottier or special, but this this ministry I have now is beyond the walls of the church. I'm still the church is still my home, but my work is out beyond that. So I don't Yeah, that's but something that was a huge takeaway for me that I that my ordination I said completed then, but I I would say now that it was expanded. It it was complete as it was but it was expanded and it was not contradictory to what I it just took a notch beyond the church institutional church the same but more the same but more same but more and a little bigger and to not diminish the other because it I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for the other and I it was important it is important but that's what I ended up uh that was the the the focus or the not summary but the one of the main highlights of the There were I think it was also in that session. I' I've not had any real dark experiences with psychedelics, but there were two things that happened in that session. I think it was in that session where I saw two images. One was this, it's an old World War II propaganda poster of Adolf Hitler and that drifted into my consciousness and then it drifted out. And then Darth Vader, which is I'm not even a huge Star Wars fan, but I'm drifted. I'm like I thought that's for another time. So I I would say the darkness, the evil, the is there. It's there. It's here. Like that's another thing we've done in Christianity is say that's outside us. It's not outside us. It's in us. We've otherred it. We've otherred it. And it that's the that's the shadow work that we need to do. And that's so yeah, we've otherred it. And it's not we've got the we have capacity to do great things and horrific things and we need to own that. And so that was that's more than probably but that little I've always remember I keep wondering is that like when am I going to encounter the evil maybe I hope I don't have to but there's plenty out there's plenty of evil out in the world without psychedelics but that was a that was a that was an important thing for me too when you mentioned shadow work I'm just curious how you picture that now you have more experience than I do I think do you see shadow work inside of you as a balance that you're trying to achieve or do you think it's something you're trying to extinguish no I think it's trying to come to relationship because it when it's not attended when the wolf isn't fed it goes berserk and that's I mean it comes out of yian psychology and I I'd worked when I was in that study I was working with a youngian analyst in Seattle and who was also an episal priest so that was a part of our preparation too that I probably should have mentioned I was I'd been in therapy I was dealing with stress work family deal with a lot of stress after that first session I also realized that this big wad of anxiety I've been carrying around was gone I was sat in the hotel lobby the next morning and I was like, I feel different. Oh, I don't think the world's out to get me. I mean, it was worse than I was admitting to myself or to my therapist or to Hopkins, I think, is I had serious anxiety, which is one of the things that psychedelics can really help with. So, I got a mental health I got a mental health benefit that I that was not intended is a byproduct of the research, but I got a huge mental health benefit from that. How's your anxiety been after that? It I have a different relationship. It comes and goes. I mean, if anxiety is not bad because it keeps us from getting eaten by the woolly mammoth, but it also can take over. And that's where I was. I was like, and too much and then it's depression. And now I see it coming on and I'm like, okay, there you are. Hey, yeah, it's a different relationship. You're more aware of it. More much more aware of it. It doesn't overwhelm you. It doesn't. And so I think that's about this. So these things that are these parts of us that have the capacity to do really awful things, if we don't deal with them and heal them, they're going to eat us up. I think that's I think you could look around, pick up the newspaper right now and see where that's happening. Un unhealed trauma, unhealed pathologies, unhealed shadow what we projected out when we don't we don't heal it. So I think that that the do looking at the darker sides of ourselves is important and we don't we don't do that in church and we need to we put it on the devil but the the devil's do you believe there are external principalities that are targeting us? I I targeting us. Yeah. Yeah. And I but we also we make it easy but they don't really have to target us. We make it easy to we invite them in. Yeah. We're just Yeah. It's not target. Yeah. We've sold I mean the phrase in scripture is principalities and powers. We've sold out. We've sold out locks, stock, and barrel of principalities and powers. So we're Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're we're in it. That's what Christians are called to be are called to be in it but not of it, you know. So yeah, we're we've sold out. What what's a practical thing someone can do? Let's say, you know, we've let the principalities in, they've troen horsed their way in. Like, let's say that I think I don't have any of that, but maybe I do because I've been Trojan horsed. What would you recommend or what's a practice tangible practice, not just think about it? I think I was just telling somebody this the other day. I think this is what you're noticeing about somebody else. like the thing that's most not annoying but like it's like you think and and then ask what in that person is in me why does that bother me? Why does that bo why does that bother me? And the answer is not because he's da da da da da. No, it's because why why does why is that bothering me? Where is that in me? Yeah. like yeah where is I yeah that's you know you see it in it's easy to see it in issues of racism or or homophobia or those kind of things like overt things overt things but it's also like what is it about that person and then it's not to beat myself up but it's just to be c to be curious and wonder why is that and then prayerfully work on that acknowledge it acknowledge that what you're really annoyed about that person is also in it's in all of us and some it just gets it takes over in some cases. So I I think obviously prayer I think community I think accountability to other people that's why the church can be such a value it can hold us accountable can also be doctrinal and narrow and mean but it can this the teaching of Jesus the biatitudes the the all of the gospels can be can hold us accountable to loving God and loving our neighbor that's that's a standard and if it's not loving God loving our neighbor then it's not it's not of God. It's not of the Christian. It's not of Christ. So, I think that reduces judgment because um if you look at somebody and you would they're doing something you don't like or they annoy you, you're judging them because that's annoying you. But I think that if you reposition them in your mind, and this is a common practice, and you think about a three-year-old or five, they were three one time, they were six years old one time, and if that three-year-old was doing it, you wouldn't be that bothered. Ah, they're three, whatever. And so like so what you're actually saying is if they were three I'd be cool with it but at their age I'm not cool with it. And that's pride in my brain because what you're saying is well I grew up from three to there and I don't do that and you do it and so I get to be annoyed with you right and feel superior. There's no grace there. No grace. There's no grace to know that they've lived a totally different life and all their decisions in their life have led them up to doing this thing right now and like who am I to go you shouldn't be doing that. I haven't lived that life. We don't know the pain. We don't even in our day-to-day conver we don't know the pain that other people are carrying and they're hiding it. All of us are hiding our pain. Well, it's always about yourself, right? It's they're being that way because of something in them, not because of me. Shouldn't bother me. They're doing that cuz it's they're they're having a bad day. Is it harming me or is it harming somebody else? No. Then shut up. We've started to do this thing in the car where I get if I get tailed really heavily by somebody and uh you know I I I would get pretty mad. Um, and now we just kind of say, "I think they really have to use the bathroom." And then that we started telling that to our kids and stuff. And it's like, you just go, "I think they probably have to really use the bathroom." And we all just, and you're like, "Oh," and all of a sudden, you're kind of like, "That's fine. You can tell like you just, it lightens the load a little bit." And and but my I give them more grace. I don't know. They might really have to use the bathroom. They might be having a bad day. I didn't do anything. I'm just driving, man. Like, you know, whatever. And it helps you kind of get to that point. Yeah. Exactly. Unless they ram you and then you can be upset then they've harmed somebody. But yeah, there's Yeah, that's so yeah, it it seems to me a big difference in the country and I'm going to use sweeping generalizations of political parties, but like on the left and the right, everybody agrees everyone should love each other if you ask them personally. Oh yeah, sure. But it's like one of the differences is what's the difference between tough love? How do you show love? Like it feels like the right believes a little bit more in tough love. The left wants more accepting love kind of. And I guess they're both accepting in a way if you look at it. But how do that's tough to deal with too. Yeah. I think to to if we could see the things if we could if we could all sit down with each other and say all right so you've got this view why tell me about it like I'm and it's hard to when somebody in this culture we're in right now it's hard to be curious because you it's just hard because it feels dangerous and it it feels dangerous and so from from all sides. So if we could sit down and say and without judgment with a complete open heart and open and I think we'd find the commonalities everyone wants the safe community everybody wants their children to be safe everybody wants a some opportunities they want health care they I mean we all want the same things and the politics is politics is how we solve societal problems when it's working it's not working right now but that's how we deal with conflict in a healthy way we duke it out at the ballot box well and I think it's shift ing from right and wrong to uh knowledgeable and ignorance. Yeah. And I think if if you just look at them as going I use that in a neutral words. You're you're ignorant. It means you you don't know. A three-year-old is ignorant. And so like is it their fault that they don't know? If you're if you're 30 and you don't know, is that your fault? How do you how if you don't know, how do you not know that you don't know? By definition, it takes the judgment away versus if you go, I'm right and that's wrong or that I'm good and that's bad. I get to judge you for it cuz I'm doing what's right. But if I go, well, I guess I just know and you just don't know, right? That seems way more grace gracious in my brain to go, I guess, for whatever reason all my life. I've led up to here and I know that we should do it this way and you just don't know that. But like I can't blame you for that because I didn't live your life right there's a there's a quote I was just saying this somebody the other day. There's a quote from Oliver Cromwell who's not a great person but this quote is from the bowels of Christ which is where they understood compassion to from the bowels of Christ consider the possibility that you are mistaken that I am mist consider myself consider that I may not have all the answers from a place of compassion consider the possibility that I might be mistaken about some issue or and and then maybe if we trusted each other more we could work it out I think and I'm still hopeful for that but and the other divide in this country is urban, suburban, and rural. And and that shouldn't be either. There's lots of reasons for that. But part of it is resources. Rural communities. I grew up in one. You grew up in one. The resources aren't there. The resources are in the cities and the suburbs. And that builds resentment over time. It does. Yeah. Education is better in the cities than the suburbs. Was better than the suburbs. Uh and the jobs are better. And they're on better on the coasts. And so it sort of explains some of the divisions we have that are economic. So you have Lagari now and you're it's about Christianity and psychedelics. What is the place of psychedelics in Christianity? So yeah. So Lagari is just real quick. That's u I started that five years ago. I I wasn't sure what I was going to do and then in the middle of COVID I realized we're in a mental health crisis. I had this amazing experience helping clergy and others were really struggling. I needed to find a I needed to there needed to be a place for Christians to learn about psychedelics and the psychedelic community to learn about the more mystical contemplative parts of Christianity and I didn't want to start it but nobody else was there so I started it and I didn't know what I was doing really but organized community is what I did. Legar is Latin it means to unite or to bind. It's the root word of religion. Relear is to rebind to God. So, so that experience I had at Hopkins, those experiences reconnected me to God and I it the burnout and the frustration I had in my work was gone. The resentment I had for a couple people in the congregation was gone. I got back to Seattle. I felt so much in love with people. And I also realized it was I've been there eight years. It was time to go. It was time to bring my family back to the somewhere in the southeast. I didn't ever think of Savannah, but I knew it was time. And so I had such clarity. And then a friend sent me the job here. And I looked I was like, "Okay, I think that's if I put in for it, I'm going to get it." Which I never thought I had such clarity that after that first session, I had such clarity. I was calm. My body was calm. And when my body was calm, I was clear. So uh Christianity um scripture. So trying not to make this I what I say about scripture is one of the things I say about scripture is there are stories that were told and remembered and written down of inexplicable non-ordinary encounters with God. So whether it's the burning bush or whether it's Paul on the road on the road to Damascus or the resurrection appearances of Jesus, people had these experiences they could not understand in their rational mind. So they told stories about him and at the root of religion is these pro are these profound experiences of God and then the religion comes comes falling out of that and we don't need him. We don't need any more religions. We need the religions we have to be revived and rejuvenated. And psychedelics is one way. I there's lots of ways to do that. But we've got to return to the mystical traditions that we have in our own traditions. Carl Roner, the 20th century theologian, said the Christian of the future will be a mystic or won't exist at all. That's right. And so, and again, that's not that's not it's it's just quieting down enough, letting go of the judgment, being curious about ourselves, being curious about the world, and watching and listening and letting the judgment go, which is a challenge all day, every day to let the judgment go. That's the work. Well, and I think that part of that maybe what you're saying or maybe I think this a little bit is that it you you might go, I don't know. I don't know how to do that. I don't even know what where to start of letting go. Okay, I'm on board. I'm going to let go and get still. What do I do? And you don't know. And maybe psychedelics is sort of like a quick little bunny slopes version to like this will actually chemically help your brain let go for a little while. I don't know if it's a bunny. It's a pretty it's a double black diamond. It's a double black diamond, but it it um it's a way to do it without having to meditate for 30 years. Yeah. Well, I think it get I think again I said earlier, we don't not we I I didn't have the time to do that. I and I'm not sure I would have. uh the the research is also showing that the psychedelics shut down the default mode network of the brain which is the part of our brain that keeps everything at equilibrium so that we it's that constant finding patterns and I do this don't do that and that shuts down with psychedelics that just goes away it's g it's offline and when that's offline then you can start seeing the trees breathe and you can connect to this energetic force in your body and you and resolve some family things that you're working on because the judgment and the pattern m making ain't working. I I really think it's a combination and our brains are part of our we're embodied spirits so our bodies are really important. Our brains are really important. So if we can quiet that stuff down, something else can happen. It's control. It keeps us safe. It keeps me from getting run over by a truck or getting eat by a bear. That's right. So it's important but it it overfunctions in the western post-enlightenment world. I totally agree. I think that fortunately we are pattern matchers. Yeah. Fortunately you learn not to eat the thing that made you sick. You learn we you can't help. Your brain is going to pattern match. However, when you get older, it's like we can see the neurons firing and it looks like a 3D lightning bolt. And they that's what pattern matching is is that same lightning bolt with the same exact branches keeps firing over and over and over. And that can be addiction. That can be habits. It's like how do you that's why Michael Pollen wrote the book. How do you actually change your mind when the default is to for those same 3D structures of lightning bolt neurons firing and psychedelics essentially take all that glue out for a little while and you can fire a brand new lightning bolt in your brain that's never fired before. And that can actually amount to change. That's how you change those thoughts. I think that I think it may be in that book, but I've heard other people say it's, you know, when you ski and you're skiing in the same groove, it's like fresh powder. It's like those those torn those worn grooves in the snow is how we get through life and sometimes those need to be disrupted. Sometimes they're not helpful, but they're there and you don't know how to get rid of them. You don't know how to get because that's all you know. That's right. and your mind just gets patterned making and that's so it and so can non-ordinary so can hiking to the top of Kilamanjaro or jumping out of an airplane or skiing fast down the hill but I think the western mind is such a is such a place right now that we need some drastic measures I really think that and again psychedelics for everyone not everyone should have not everyone should do it but a lot of us could greatly benefit from it. And it's not Timothy Liry putting LSD in the water at Harvard. It's that's uh immor unethical. But it's saying this is okay. And it's having religious leaders and political leaders and educators saying this help me. There's nothing to be afraid of. Be careful. It's powerful. But pray if you're a Christian or worried about entities or spirits. Pray that the the spirit's going to be there. Remind yourself of that and build a hedge of protection if that's your language. Would you have said that before all of this that doing psychedelics was a sin? No. I didn't even think that beforehand. No. No. It's a weird framework. It's immoral. It's not It's not immoral. It's a weird framework. It's not. It's not. I mean, there's lots of things that are immoral, but eating a plant, no. And I think it any addiction is not immoral. It just separates you from God. It's not a addiction is not a sin. It's just one of those things that separates us. So if it if the LSD or the mushrooms separate you from God and your true self, then yeah, that's a problem. But if it opens you up, then it's a gift. I mean, the mushrooms, just think about mushrooms. They grow all over South Georgia and cow patties. I mean, people that I know down here, they're like, "Oh yeah, we used to go out in the field and eat mushrooms." But and that's fine. That's fine. But there's also a way to do it ceremonial in a ceremonial way and in an intentional way that can bring great healing and insight which is what we're talking about. It's and that's recreational use is recreate. It's fine but the real work gets done in the experience and then the followup and committing to a spirit recommitting to a spiritual practice recommitting to your Christian walk. Yeah, that's that's that's where the long-term healing comes from is re it's not the if you don't do that then it's just a fun little tricky trippy thing you did that's fine too but if you really want the long term you need the rootedness of I think a religious and spiritual tradition that's why I keep saying church please pay attention to this people need what we have they need what we have I I think I think a lot of what you're saying is it depends on set and setting like like if you use it as a party drug you'll get party drug results if you use it as a religious drug you'll get religious experiences. Do you have a preferred setting setting? Uh with a small group of friends, trusted friends. I mean, I've got a lot of experience now, but I think for when people are first starting out, it should be there should be somebody and always have somebody that's not using that day, but the first few times you really need to be with somebody that knows really what they're doing. Maybe the first few times. I was lucky to be with the people that knew what they were doing like nobody else. But there's lots of people out there that are skilled and gifted. I think the best way for this to be used and for Christians is in a retreat setting with people that we know and trust and are willing to be real with because you there's a vulnerability when you're shaking or you know there's a real and you want to be vulnerable and you got to you got to trust the people you're with feel safe. Yeah. And I trusted the people to help somehow well not some they were so good at making me feel comfortable and I being curious about me in ways that nobody else really had been even. So they were so good at lowering my anxiety that I I let myself have these crazy experiences because I trusted them. So it's you got to have a level of trust and I think outside's a way I think being outside's a way to do it. I think eye shades and music are the eye shades allow you to really go in. I think that's important. And then sometimes it's just great to be outside and be amazed at the trees are breathing. That's see the rocks cry out. The rocks cry. Exactly. Think about all the things in scripture that seem to have well the whole book of Revelation I would say. But but there's Ezekiel. But so many things in the there there's something going on beyond nor ordinary consciousness. Jesus is walking through doors and his friends don't recognize him and he's walking with these people and only when he breaks the bread do they realize who they've been walking. So it's all very weird. Very weird. I think that's it. I think I think that you know we got the woo woo term and all these woo people. But I think I I like to remind Christians that Christianity is one of the original woo. It's woo. I mean it really if you're not doing it if you're not woo then like you're not doing what happened when Jesus was around. Exactly. Exactly. It was it was mystical and it was spiritual and it was it was other worldly. All he talked about was the other not this not this is not real. And if he talked if he talked about these things if he talked about the mustard seed or the fig tree he's talking about him talking about them as a window into something else. The natural world is really important but there's a lot more going on. And I think you see that I've seen that in psychedelic spaces too where in my own experience at one time I was at an Iawaska retreat and uh all of a sudden I f in the experience I'm in this it's like I d got I got dropped into this room and I didn't know anybody and I was like these are not my people and I it was like I've been dropped into a file folder that was not my life and I po somehow I popped myself out of it. So there's a lot going on that there's a lot of time is not linear space like it's we'll maybe event the physicists and will tell and cosmologists will eventually help us figure it out but there is so much more going on than we know and that's why when we have these synchronicities that we talked about earlier or just just things that we can't quite and we don't we don't trust them and we should trust them. You should trust him because there's a lot going on. Uh Rupert Sheldrake writes a lot about morphic resonic morphic field. He says that scalar waves. Yeah. He says that he's a he's a Ruper's a practicing Christian. He says that Eucharist and communion are morphic fields where all where in the right set in the right moment with the right people and the right intention weird things happen. And I I've seen it. I've seen it where there's something going on that's beyond what's pouring water over somebody. Yeah. And that was one of the things that we had talked about is like I forget who said it, but he said if if synchronicities are not happening in your life, it's like follow the synchronicities. And so if you're living your whole life and there's no synchronicities happening, you're not paying attention. But I think it's the universe talking. It's God talking and trying to help. And and it's usually it's usually whatever when joy is happening is when they happen the most often. At least for me, that's my experience. Well, I mean, yeah, joy is happening because we're not ftting all the time. I mean, and that's the I was such a I was I was fretting all the time and the psilocybin turned the fret machine off and I it allowed me to get back to really back to the core person. You know, it's a constant battle, but a constant struggle, but to get back to my core essence, a lot of it self-imposed in that way. You're fretting you were doing that to yourself. Is that what you're saying? And the culture c I mean and yeah there's a lot to fret about but I think I'm giving myself over to it. Yeah, there you go. And there's a lot of money to be made giving medicine to people that are fretting all the time when all I really should have done is go out and eat a mushroom and I I wouldn't take anti-depressants, but that's what that's what we're doing. Yeah, we're blunting it. Anti-depressants don't heal anything. They just blunt it and they don't really work very well. Well, I think I think John's Hopkins has shown or there's been some studies already that show that psilocybin therapy is like 85% more effective than SSRI and that's the standard thing that you get prescribed for depression and you got to be on them for a while and you know I think they can have their place and I'm not you know and they were never int they were intended to be a short-term solution to do some work and get out of it you know um and to turn off the deep if somebody's spiraling into deep depression they they're helpful right oh man for sure es ketamine can So yeah. So I mean we have access to and I'd like to get us people tell people so that we don't get there. Like I'm not sure where I was headed with the anxiety that I was dealing with. I it it I was drinking more. I know that. And I was drinking a lot of coffee in the morning and a lot of West Coast IPAs in the afternoon. And that's how I was sort of dealing with it. You were noticing Yeah. You were noticing that. Yeah. I was noticing that. Especially on reflection. I was managing my anxiety. Yeah. Which is what we do. I mean that that's okay every once in a while but it's it's not a pattern. It's not it can't be a pattern. So there's so much so I think the why should this matter to Christians? Well, it's healing people. Start there. And Jesus Jesus's ministry and the church's ministry for a long time was healing. And so save a lot. If the church didn't care about healing, then let's shut it down because that's the that's one of Jesus was a teacher and a healer and a prophet. And we're called to be all those two. and uh and uh and the healing is coming because people are having experiences of God broadly understood or specific in my case specifically understood even if it's just unitive consciousness that's a experience of something beyond ourselves. So people are having spiritual and religious experiences and being healed by it. So why would we not be curious and they need support they need pastoral and spiritual support. So that's your job. That's our job. That's our job to pastor to do that as both the clergy and the people are called to care for each other and and we've got this rich mystical tradition the coming out of Judaism and before that other traditions but it's all over scripture and it wasn't just two two or three thousand years ago. It's happening now. No, I I love uh Thomas Merin's Sevenstory Mountain and it's a short book if you haven't read it. That is just unbelievable. contemplative Christian right down the middle and like to read his story is just it's a it's his story basically and it's unbelievable. Yeah. And so we have a huge tradition. Oh my god. Yes. Of course we do. And it didn't Yeah. all throughout the Christian tradition. And they're pe they're mystics now. I mean lots of monks and nuns and people that have dedicated their life to a life of prayer and service are connected in a way that it's hard for us to be because we're we've got other jobs in the world. But there's people that are holding it all together in prayer. that we're not even aware of. So yeah, there's Christian the Christian tradition is rich and beautiful and Richard Roar's book the Christ uh universal Christ I think is for people that are trying to think of Christianity beyond kind of the traditional way we think about it is the the universal Christ is available to everyone regardless of religion. Then you don't have to convert to Christianity to allow Christ consciousness to Buddha. Buddha consciousness. Christ consciousness is this expansive understanding of our connection to the universe and to each other. Well, and Richard Roar for those who don't know is a Franciscan monk and he if you know the Inagram for anybody who's into that, he was very popular for codifying that essentially. So he's done a lot of that. But and a lot of men's work and yeah actually the enagram was an important part of me understanding my own experience. I'm a nine, which is the center of the body, but the most disembodied. So once I put all those pieces together, the throat chakra, the nines cut off from their bodies, it was like just like my whole experience made total sense. And in the moment, I was just having the experience. But again, all of those resources from psychology and scripture and theology come to bear on it. And if people if we're not out there open to this, then we're gonna miss our chance for ministry, right? So that's awesome. Yeah. Would you like to say a small prayer for anyone that might be listening to wrap this up? Sure. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah. So, if if you're listening out there, and we'll do that here sitting in Savannah, just take a just a just a minute to transition for whatever you were thinking about or doing. Take a few deep breaths. You're sitting in a chair. Notice where your butt bottom connects to the chair and where your feet are. Just uh notice your body. Notice our bodies. Feel our bodies. Love our bodies. Notice our breath. Oh God of this world and the universe and the cosmos, God of this very moment, be with all of us. Be with this country in this world. Be with the person that's listening that's in a very difficult time. Help us to see your presence moving always. Feel your presence moving always in the world. We trust that it's there. Help us to remove whatever blocks we have to that strengthen us, connect us, encourage us. All this we pray in all the holy names of God. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thanks, Hunt. Thank you all. That was great. Appreciate your time. That was so fun. Yeah, you'all are good. See everybody.